Things have changed again—something that was with me is now gone. Again, another “change of life” as it were. I’ve been through so many in the past few years, as I’m sure so many others have been. But these are mine; mine to ponder, weep over, and, with time and faith, from which to grow stronger.
The first, a big-time change: after forty years with the same man, the very same man as much as a man can be the same from day to day, he was gone. 365 times 40, close to 15,000 days. A lot of days. Happy sunny sea-salt-smell-filled days in Maine, the place we met and loved the best, and loved in the best.
Other days and dark nights filled with pain and alcohol-fed meanness, never physical but deeply hurting and searing deep wounds never to heal completely. And then the days and nights of my complete giving up myself to care for him in his sickness and weakness, and then the release, of him to the afterlife in which he never believed. And my release to a new life, alone, no longer a couple. A single.
So another change: finding myself, my own identity, after having given up my name, my family life, my chance at a family, to be with this man. Re-exploring my father and mother’s families, unearthing old photos and letters, long dusty hidings of faces, some remembered, some forgotten to time and dead relatives no longer able to identify that man in uniform, that child at the beach.
A trip to my home state of New Jersey, to stay with a cousin I hadn’t seen since high school days made reconnections possible. An old photograph that she had saved showed my father sitting in the lap of one of his older sisters. This faded photograph of 100-years plus in age, showing my father the youngest I had ever seen him, and his sister Katie whom I had never known as she died in her teens.
And I shared with Ilona a group photo that she had never seen, taken at a New Year’s Eve party circa 1958: the Bullis family and spouses: Maud and Joe Lynch, Helen and Hank Bullis, Marie and Charles Nyman, Flo and Paul Bullis, and my parents, Regina and Gerard (Roddy) Bullis. Staying up past midnight, drinking Irish tea, sharing memories from our childhoods. I became Sandra Bullis again, establishing myself as my original self.
Another connection to and from the past, my known-her-since Kindergarten childhood friend Joanne asked me if I’d like her to research my family tree. As the one living non-related person who has known me longer than any other, one who remembers my parents and brother, the names of dogs and cats long past, the Brownie and Girl Scout troops and trips shared, I grabbed onto the opportunity to continue becoming myself.
Her extensive research into genealogy of the Netherlands produced amazing results, and, in the process, we found in each other a new cousin-ship, although many times removed. My father’s surname of Bullis was originally Boelaars, and in the lineage of the past there were many Gerards or variations on that name, as well as several ancestors named Savos, my brother’s middle name, after one of my father’s older brothers, dead long before my brother and I entered the picture. I began the beginning of myself. My self.
So, without someone else in the house I rearrange my life in ways visible and invisible; books and memorabilia no longer owned by anyone living; furniture no longer sat in except by 4-legged beings, music unlistened to, all gone as I make room for my life to unfurl and occupy the space that is now all mine. New pictures on the walls, living space rearranged, my sewing and quilting finally having their own place, my quiet space, my do-not-disturb-space, and not just in a physical sense.
Within and without I am becoming myself again. The new person whom I have let into my life, so cautiously, carefully, fearfully letting open to hurt again; finding a giving and taking, a man who stands beside me to help and encourage me to grow and learn; a man who is so strong in himself and the understanding of the struggles, inner and outer, we all face in our own ways and times. This man that I am now with, who is within me and with whom I now choose to travel parallel, not bound together, but at a respectful and caring separateness that allows us each to be our own.
I do not need another to travel with me, this is a choice and can be unchosen by either of us, we are not bound. Understanding this is how we continue to grow together and apart, with and without each other. Mathematical parallels, equals, neither one greater or lesser. Within is without. Understanding this is coming.